The Prometheus Trap / 5 days in the Prime Minister's Office

According to Greek mythology, it was Prometheus who gave fire to humans.

The acquisition of fire allowed humankind to develop civilization. Fire derived from fossil fuels further spurred production capacity. In time, humans attained atomic fire, a feat that was also described as "superior energy." Playing with fire, however, has presented humans with a dilemma.

Humans, who achieved a civilized world through Prometheus, are now troubled by atomic fire. The series of articles contemplate the country, its citizens and electric power in light of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The fourth series, “5 Days in the Prime Minister's Office,” depicts what was going on in the prime minister's office during five days immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake took place on March 11, 2011. Titles of the people in this story are those they held at that time.

The first, second and third series are available at:

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On the morning of March 14, 2011, Daisuke Roberto Kido, a 33-year-old official of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty Division of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau, received a phone call from the Headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ).

It was the fourth day since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11 severely crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The call was a request for the Japanese government to share any radiation-related information in its possession with U.S. forces, as the latter would be needing it for their post-disaster relief work in Japan.

The Foreign Ministry was running two 12-hour shifts at the time. Kido had just started his shift at 9 a.m. that morning when the call came. With his superior's permission, he began phoning the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and other relevant ministries and agencies. After being shunted around, he was finally connected to the Office of Emergency Planning and Environmental Radioactivity of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Yu Sumikawa, 33, deputy office manager, told Kido that the ministry would provide information so long as it was used only for disaster relief purposes. But when Kido asked that the ministry send the information directly to the USFJ, he was told that the office of emergency planning was in too much of a state of confusion to comply, so Kido took it upon himself to relay the information to U.S. forces himself.

At 10:40 a.m., Kido received an e-mail from the Nuclear Safety Technology Center, an entity commissioned by the science and technology ministry to predict the dispersion of radiation. The name of the file attached to the e-mail included the word "SPEEDI."

Kido had never seen the word before and had no idea what it was. But he forwarded the e-mail and the file attachment anyway to USFJ.

SPEEDI, which stands for "system for prediction of environmental emergency dose information," is designed to predict the flow of radioactive substances. Actually, its predictions were fairly accurate, as it turned out later.

But as already reported in the second series, "The Researcher's Resignation," SPEEDI data were never used in mapping out the evacuation routes for Fukushima Prefecture residents, many of whom were still being evacuated from their homes when Kido received the file from the Nuclear Technology Center on March 14. A good number of those evacuees had no idea how to tell safe areas from high-risk areas, and simply assumed that the farther away they moved from the crippled plant, the safer they should be.

SPEEDI data remained unused simply because this system's very existence was virtually unknown even among the nation's top political leadership, including Prime Minister Naoto Kan, 65, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, 47. They remained in the dark because the bureaucrats who should have kept them apprised of this system had neglected to do so.

As a result, the USFJ began receiving SPEEDI data when the prime minister of Japan was not even aware of the system's existence.

When Kan was informed of this fact in December, his voice rose. "I had absolutely no idea," he thundered. "I should have been the first to be told about the data. Why on earth did this happen?"

SPEEDI streams data every hour, and Kido kept receiving hourly updates on his computer. But since the updates were in graphic form with maps, they were large files, and Kido soon had trouble sending and receiving e-mails on his computer. To fix the problem, he re-programmed his computer to automatically forward the data to the USFJ and then delete. This went on until July.

About 20 minutes after Kido received the first set of SPEEDI data, Kan was in his office on the fifth floor of the prime minister's office, conferring with Natsuo Yamaguchi, 59, leader of the opposition New Komeito.

Ten minutes or so into the meeting, there was sharp, urgent knocking on the door, with someone shouting, "Turn the TV on! Channel 4! There's an explosion!"

When the TV came on, the screen showed the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Footage of an explosion, with orange flashes of light emanating from the nuclear reactor building, was being shown over and over. Smoke billowed out and rose to the sky, while fragments of concrete from the damaged building littered the ground.

The images had been caught by monitor cameras set up by Fukushima Central Television in the mountains about 17 kilometers south-southwest of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

A frowning Kan murmured, "The smoke. It's black."

An explosion occurred at the No. 3 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant at 11:01 a.m. on March 14.

Prime Minister Kan was disturbed that black smoke was spewing out of the facility. It was definitely different from the white smoke he had seen two days before when a hydrogen buildup in the No. 1 reactor building caused an explosion.

Kan cut short his meeting with New Komeito leader Yamaguchi, and calmly ordered his secretaries as well as Manabu Terada, 35, special adviser to the prime minister, to assemble all relevant personnel of the government's nuclear emergency response headquarters in his office.

Half an hour after the explosion, the key personnel were gathered in the prime minister's office. They included Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano; Banri Kaieda, 62, minister of economy, trade and industry; Edano's deputy, Tetsuro Fukuyama, 49; Masaya Yasui of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA); and Haruki Madarame, 63, head of the Nuclear Safety Commission.

"What is going on?" Kan asked. Nobody had an answer. "Well then, gather whatever information you can," he ordered. "And get on with it as soon as possible."

Some hurried to the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office. Others moved to the parlor next to Kan's office and started making calls on their cellphones.

In Fukushima Prefecture, meanwhile, helicopters and buses were taking people out of the evacuation zone, designated on March 12, within a 20-kilometer radius from the crippled nuclear plant. These people were mostly residents of nursing homes for the elderly and long-term inpatients at local hospitals, who could not evacuate on their own. Many residents were fleeing the prefecture.

SPEEDI, the operation of which was overseen by the science and technology ministry, was deemed the most helpful tool for planning the evacuation of citizens. The system began predicting the dispersion of radiation from day one.

From the Nuclear Safety Technology Center, the system continued to stream hourly updates to the science and technology ministry and the Nuclear Safety Commission. The same data also reached U.S. Forces Japan via the Foreign Ministry. And the NISA had the Nuclear Safety Technology Center send modified SPEEDI predictions after including the data provided by the agency in calculations.

Yet, the bureaucrats who were using SPEEDI failed to inform the prime minister's office of the existence of this system. They never advised Kan to take advantage of SPEEDI, even though Kan was often in the same room with senior officials of the NISA and the Nuclear Safety Commission.

Lacking its own source of information, the prime minister's office was reduced to scurrying about to confirm news updates on television.

Two whiteboards were set up in the parlor adjacent to Kan's office for sharing information, but there was little new information to share.

While Kan's staffers were scrambling to gather information, an abnormal situation was developing at the No. 2 reactor as a result of the explosion at the adjoining No. 3 reactor building.

The worst nuclear crisis in the nation's history was in the making, without the knowledge of the prime minister and his team.

The March 14 explosion at the No. 3 reactor building destroyed the electrical system for opening the valves of the No. 2 reactor, causing the containment vessel's decompression valves to remain shut.

This meant that the pressure would keep building and the nuclear reactor itself could blow. And that, in turn, would set off a nuclear catastrophe of a magnitude comparable with Chernobyl's.

The prime minister's office first became aware of the abnormality inside the No. 2 reactor around 4 p.m. on March 14.

Reports on the conditions of the reactor, prepared by Tokyo Electric Power Co., were being faxed to Kan's office. Copies of the faxed messages were placed on a table in the parlor adjoining the office, where the pile grew higher with the passing of time.

Staying put in the parlor were Yasui of the NISA and Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission. They were joined from time to time by industry minister Kaieda, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama and special adviser Terada, among others.

The faxed reports provided hourly water level and pressure readings inside the reactor. The water level kept dropping, which was bad news for the fuel rods that must remain submerged.

Around 4 p.m., someone muttered, "I am afraid the fuel rods are exposed."

His fear became reality at 6:22 p.m, when the fuel rods became fully exposed.

With the reactor being heated with no water inside, it was only a matter of time before the fuel rods started to melt, forming holes through which melted fuel leak. Fire trucks began pumping water into the reactor, but they eventually ran out of gas. Refueling them to resume the pumping became an urgent priority.

But bad news reached the prime minister's office after 8 p.m; the reactor's internal pressure had risen so high that water could no longer be pumped into it.

Hearing this in his office, Kan picked up his cellphone and spoke directly to Masao Yoshida, 56, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

"We can still keep trying," Yoshida told Kan. "But we don't have enough weapons. If only we could get hold of pumps that would work despite the pressure in the reactor being so high."

Yoshida had mentioned the same thing earlier to Goshi Hosono, 40, another special adviser to the prime minister.

In the meantime, Masataka Shimizu, 67, president of TEPCO, was trying frantically to get hold of Kaieda. Shimizu kept calling him over and over in vain.

TEPCO President Shimizu desperately tried to contact Kaieda on two occasions on March 14.

One was during two hours from 7 p.m., when the No. 2 reactor was overheating after the fuel rods become fully exposed. TEPCO communicated this alarming development to the industry ministry, among others.

The other was toward midnight after 10:50 p.m., when the pressure inside the No. 2 reactor containment vessel exceeded the designed limit. By around midnight, TEPCO's last-ditch effort to vent the pressure had failed.

On the two occasions, Shimizu tried frantically to speak to industry minister Kaieda. Clutching his cellphone, he repeatedly called Kaieda's secretary, at times punching the redial button every few seconds.

According to Kaieda, Shimizu said to him when they finally spoke on the phone, "I want to evacuate the staff at the Fukushima No. 1 plant to the No. 2 plant. Would you help us in any way?" But Kaieda would not hear of it. "Please hold down the fort," he told Shimizu.

This conversation presumably took place around 8 p.m., but some people disagree.

Special adviser Terada recalled going into Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano's office a few minutes after 8 to find him talking with Kaieda. Then Kaieda's secretary came in and said, "A phone call from TEPCO, sir." Kaieda told the secretary, "I don't need to take the call. The matter has been settled. I've already told them my answer is 'No.' "

When Terada asked Kaieda what this was about, Kaieda replied, "TEPCO said they wanted to pull out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant."

"But sir, that's a serious matter," a surprised Terada told him. "Shouldn't you take the call and make sure there are no misunderstandings?"

Kaieda obliged and took the call. It was from Shimizu. Kaieda told him, "Please hold down the fort."

According to Edano, Shimizu called him, too, around midnight, saying he wanted to evacuate his staff from the Fukushima No. 1 plant. Edano's reply was terse: "That's not something I can readily say 'Yes' to."

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama claimed that TEPCO had also called special adviser Hosono, but Hosono had refused to take the call.

Given the frequency of the calls Shimizu made, he was obviously desperate.

At 8:09 p.m. on March 14, Kaoru Yoshida, TEPCO's Corporate Communications Department chief, picked up a microphone and faced reporters at the utility's head office in Tokyo.

"There is something we need to tell you," he began. "It is about the condition of the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The pool of water in the reactor is now almost empty."

After printouts of pertinent data were distributed among the reporters, a news conference with TEPCO Executive Vice President Sakae Muto, 61, began at 8:40 p.m. Questions from the floor had mostly to do with what TEPCO was doing to ensure safety and prevent radioactive substances from spreading from the crippled plant. But Muto remained evasive, speaking only in generalities about the difficulty of "foreseeing the future."

Kazuo Matsunaga, vice minister of the industry ministry, paced the corridors on the fifth floor of the prime minister's office around 10 p.m.

Terada recalled the industry minister Kaieda mumbling, "Matsunaga is here to tell us that TEPCO wants to pull out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant."

Around 11 p.m., Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano held a teleconference with U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos, 56, who requested that U.S. nuclear experts be stationed permanently at the prime minister's office.

The request spelled Washington's vote of non-confidence in Japan's crisis management ability, and one that could infringe upon Japan's sovereignty. Edano turned it down politely. "This is a very tough one," he said. "We wish we could oblige, but ..." He then reported the conversation to Prime Minister Kan.

The crisis at the No. 2 reactor kept the prime minister's office abuzz into the wee hours of March 15.

Edano was nodding off in a chair in his office when an aide shook him awake a little after midnight. "Industry minister Kaieda wants to see you," he said.

Edano went into the prime minister's drawing room, where Kaieda, Fukuyama, Hosono and Terada were gathered.

Hosono handed Edano a cellphone, asking him to tell Yoshida, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant who was on the line, that there was no way the Kan administration was going to allow the utility to withdraw from the plant.

"The plant is under control, right?" Edano asked Yoshida. "You don't have to pull out now, do you?"

"No, we don't, sir. We are going to do our very best," Yoshida replied.

Finishing the call, Edano said, "What on earth got TEPCO headquarters into thinking the plant had to be evacuated? They are obviously not communicating well with their people at the plant."

But the crisis at the No. 2 reactor was far from under control. An attempt to open a pressure-release valve at the top of the containment vessel failed. The atmosphere in the prime minister's drawing room grew gloomier with time.

In the wee hours of March 15, the question of whether TEPCO should evacuate the Fukushima No. 1 plant resurfaced, even though industry minister Kaieda had earlier rejected TEPCO's request to do so.

There were no improvements in the status of the No. 2 reactor. The venting valve for reducing the reactor pressure remained shut. What would happen if the pressure kept building up until it exceeded the limit? The possibility of an explosion remained frighteningly real.

Gathered in the parlor adjoining Kan's office were the key members of the government's nuclear emergency response team--Kaieda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, his deputy, Fukuyama, and Hosono and Terada, special advisers to the prime minister, as well as Yasui of the NISA and Madarame, chief of the Nuclear Safety Commission.

The atmosphere was gloomy. According to a memo compiled later from comments made by their aides and others, everyone in the room began having second thoughts about keeping TEPCO workers at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. The workers' safety was their primary concern. Although there were no core meltdowns yet, the possibility of an explosion could not be ruled out, and nobody could tell what would happen--a sharp rise in radiation levels or an explosion.

"We were all beginning to think that perhaps there was no avoiding evacuating TEPCO workers from the plant," Fukuyama recalled.

The evacuation zone for local residents had been expanded on March 12 to a 20-kilometer radius from the crippled plant. With most of the residents already out of the zone, at least they were no longer at risk for mass exposure to radiation even if the No. 2 reactor should blow. But the safety of TEPCO workers was another matter; they were in grave danger.

"Shouldn't we seek the prime minister's judgment now?" Fukuyama suggested. Everyone agreed.

At the time, Prime Minister Kan was taking a nap on a sofa in another parlor next to his office, fully clothed in his disaster-response duds. Since March 11, he had not returned once to his official residence, nor taken a shower in the bathroom near the parlor.

Kan woke up when his aide, Kenji Okamoto, knocked on the door. "Industry minister Kaieda is here, Mr. Prime Minister," Okamoto announced.

"Right," Kan replied, and raised himself from the sofa. It was almost 3 a.m.

Awoken from his shut-eye, Prime Minister Kan stepped into his office at 3 a.m. on March 15. Awaiting him there were industry minister Kaieda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama and two special advisers to the prime minister, Hosono and Terada.

According to Fukuyama, Kan did not hide his disbelief and disdain when he was informed that TEPCO wished to withdraw from the Fukushima No. 1 plant. "Don't they know what they're talking about?" he snapped. "Evacuation is out of the question."

At 3:20 p.m., everyone moved to the parlor next door. On one wall hung a work of calligraphy bearing the word "senzei." It means a cicada's cast-off shell, but it also implies a state of freedom from worldly cares and ambitions.

The group was soon joined by deputy chief Cabinet secretaries Hirohisa Fujii, 79, and Kinya Takino, 64; and Ryu Matsumoto, 60, minister in charge of disaster management, as well as NISA Director-General Nobuaki Terasaka, 58, Yasui, also of the NISA; Madarame, chief of the Nuclear Safety Commission, and his deputy, Yutaka Kukita.

The crisis at the No. 2 reactor had begun the day before. Attempts were being made to reduce the reactor pressure, but nothing was working. The main problem was the pipeline valve for relieving the pressure building up inside the reactor. Unless the valve could be opened, the pressure buildup would eventually cause the reactor to blow. And the pressure was building up every second.

The meeting began with Yasui explaining the situation, followed by Edano repeating TEPCO's wish to evacuate the plant since there was nothing more that could be done to alleviate the crisis.

But again, Kan put his foot down immediately. "Evacuation is not an option," he repeated.

When everyone concurred, it was agreed that confronting TEPCO directly would be the only way to stop it from pulling out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

The group decided to send for TEPCO President Shimizu.

While waiting for Shimizu's arrival, Kan asked only the politicians to come to his office.

"If we don't contain this crisis and TEPCO ends up evacuating the plant, the whole of eastern Japan is going to be ruined," Kan said. "We just can't run away from this. If we do, we deserve a foreign invasion."

Then, fixing his gaze on each man, Kan said, "I'm going to TEPCO headquarters. Are you coming with me?" "You?" "You?"

With the crisis continuing at the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, Prime Minister Kan was in his office in the early hours of March 15, waiting for TEPCO President Shimizu, whom he had summoned, to arrive.

"The thought of the reactor blowing filled me with dread," Kan later recalled. "Should that happen, the consequences would be truly detrimental to the whole nation. I even thought about my mother's house in Mitaka (in western Tokyo), wondering if it'll ever be habitable again."

There were four TEPCO staffers stationed at the prime minister's office. The most senior of the group was Ichiro Takekuro, 65, a former TEPCO executive vice president in charge of nuclear operations who went by the honorary title of "fellow," which is conferred upon distinguished engineers.

Since March 11, Takekuro had been staying in the parlor on the fourth floor of the prime minister's office, instead of on the fifth floor, where Kan's office is located.

He represented TEPCO in the government's disaster response plans, attending crucial meetings and offering technical advice.

But he was nowhere to be found on early March 15, when the prime minister's office was angry over the issue of evacuating TEPCO workers from the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Takekuro was taking a nap at a nearby hotel at that time.

On March 14, he had dealt with the No. 2 reactor crisis, succeeding around 7 p.m. in lowering the reactor pressure slightly. This enabled fire trucks to inject seawater into the reactor from around 7:45 p.m to cool the reactor core. Relieved, he checked into a hotel near the prime minister's office just after midnight to shower and take a nap. He kept his cellphone by his pillow, but the phone never rang, and he slept undisturbed until morning.

The pressure inside the containment vessel later began to rise dangerously again while he slept, but nobody at TEPCO's head office informed Takekuro of this development.

In the meantime, the car carrying Shimizu was on its way to the prime minister's office. While waiting for him, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama and Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, excused themselves from Kan's office.

Stepping out, Fukuyama whispered to Terada, "It'll be really, really bad if Shimizu says (to the prime minister's face) that he wants to evacuate his people from the Fukushima No. 1 plant."

Terada suggested, "Perhaps we should alert Shimizu to the prime minister's intention before he goes into the office?"

Shimizu was accompanied by two senior TEPCO executives, one in charge of Diet affairs and the other in charge of public relations. Shimizu mumbled to them in the car, "I'm so sorry. The prime minister is going to give us a big dressing-down again. I'm so sorry to put you two through it."

TEPCO President Shimizu arrived at the prime minister's office at 4:17 a.m. on March 15.

He was met by Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, outside Kan's office on the fifth floor. Terada had thought of warning Shimizu in advance that Kan would not hear of TEPCO evacuating the Fukushima No. 1 plant, but decided to keep quiet.

Shimizu was accompanied by two TEPCO executives, but he alone was ushered into the parlor adjoining Kan's office.

After thanking and apologizing to Shimizu for his trouble, Kan came straight to the point. "There is to be no withdrawal. Not ever."

In the room were Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, industry minister Kaieda, three deputy chief Cabinet secretaries--Fukuyama, Takino and Fujii--and Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister. They held their breath as they awaited Shimizu's response.

Hands on his lap, Shimizu nodded his head and said simply, "Yes, I understand."

Kaieda later recalled, "My immediate reaction was, 'Huh?' I mean, he'd been so adamant before about pulling out of the plant."

Kan went on, "I want Hosono to be permanently stationed at TEPCO. Please make a room and a desk available for him. I intend to set up an integrated emergency response headquarters at TEPCO so we can share information."

Shimizu looked surprised, but replied again, "Yes, I understand."

The headquarters was to be a supra-legal entity enabling the government to exercise direct control over a private enterprise.

Kan then asked Shimizu when he should meet him at TEPCO head office. "In about two hours," Shimizu replied. "That's too late," Kan shot back. "Make it one hour. Please have the room ready by then." Shimizu consented.

"Well then, this meeting is over," Kan said. "Please start your preparations."

The meeting had lasted only 18 minutes.

With Kan's visit to TEPCO set, an aide shouted, "Someone call the press club of the prime minister's office and let its reporters know the prime minister is going to TEPCO."

Kazuhiro Hasegawa, 48, manager of TEPCO's Corporate Communications Department, heard the aide's shouted words. He then saw the TEPCO official in charge of Diet affairs, who was accompanying Shimizu, pull out his cellphone and plead with a Democratic Party of Japan legislator affiliated with Denryoku Soren (the Federation of Electric Power Related Industry Worker's Unions of Japan), "Could you do something about this?"

But there was nothing the lawmaker could do.

Kan returned to his office alone and sat at his desk. Opening his notebook, which he always kept within reach, he started writing the names of members of the new integrated emergency response headquarters he was going to head. He chose Kaieda and Shimizu as his deputies, and picked Hosono as secretary-general.

At 5:28 a.m., Kan set off for TEPCO's head office. Kaieda, Fukuyama, Hosono and Terada followed.

At 5:35 a.m. on March 15, the black limousine carrying Prime Minister Kan arrived at TEPCO's head office in Tokyo's Uchisaiwaicho district.

Kan entered TEPCO's disaster response office on the second floor, which would later become the government-TEPCO integrated disaster response office.

The walls were hung with multiple monitors for teleconferences with personnel at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. Kan sat facing Tsunehisa Katsumata, 71, TEPCO chairman, and President Shimizu.

Below is a paraphrase of Kan's "pep talk" according to notes taken by his aides:

"I believe you yourselves understand better than anyone the gravity of what has befallen us all. It is vital that the government and TEPCO work together on real-time responses to this disaster. I am heading this office, with industry minister Kaieda and TEPCO President Shimizu as my deputies.

"The No. 2 reactor is not our only problem. If we abandon the No. 2 unit, heaven knows what may happen to the reactors Nos. 1, 3 and 4 through 6, and eventually even the Fukushima No. 2 plant.

"Should we abandon them all, every reactor and every nuclear waste would disintegrate after some months and start leaking radiation. And we are talking 10 to 20 units of double or triple the magnitude of the Chernobyl disaster.

"Our country will not survive unless we put our lives on the line to bring this situation under control. We simply cannot withdraw and do nothing. Should we do that, other countries may well insist on stepping in and taking control.

"You are the parties directly involved in this crisis. I ask you to fight it with your lives. There is no running away. Information is not being communicated fast enough. In fact, information is inaccurate and some is wrong. Please, do not remain defensive. I beg of you to share your information with us. We need to address immediate issues, but we also must think five hours, 10 hours, one day or one week ahead and act accordingly.

"Money is not an object anymore. TEPCO must do everything it can. Withdrawal is not an option when our country's survival is at stake. I ask the chairman and president to prepare for the worst. If you are concerned for the safety of your workers, send those who are 60 and older to the accident site. I myself am prepared to go.

"I repeat, withdrawal is not an option. If TEPCO withdraws, the company will go under for certain. ..."

Shortly after Kan concluded his pep talk, a loud explosion was heard at 6 a.m. near the suppression chamber of the No. 2 reactor.

Three hours later, a radiation level reading of 11,930 microsieverts per hour was confirmed near the front gates of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. It was an abnormally high level, to say the least.

The wind, which was initially blowing toward the sea, gradually began to blow inland and eventually set the direction to northwest. And in that direction lay the town of Namie, the village of Iitate, and the city of Fukushima.

Around 6 a.m. on March 15, the pressure in the suppression chamber of the No. 2 reactor dipped to zero with a big bang. It suggested that an explosion had blown holes in the reactor, from which steam with high radiation levels had escaped.

Prime Minister Kan was on the second floor of TEPCO's head office at the time. He issued a temporary evacuation order for 650 workers at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. The evacuees fled to the Fukushima No. 2 plant, about 10 kilometers to the south.

TEPCO President Shimizu's repeated request for evacuation, which had been firmly rejected by Kan earlier that morning, was finally granted, at least in part.

Regarding this request, TEPCO insists today that all Shimizu had asked for was that he be allowed to "consider the necessity of temporarily evacuating non-essential staff from the plant."

However, TEPCO's claim has been refuted by five people who had spoken with Shimizu back then while manning the prime minister's office. The Asahi Shimbun has verified this with each of the five people, but Shimizu himself has remained unavailable for comment.

Back to the morning of March 15.

According to documents kept at the prime minister's office, Shimizu told Kan of TEPCO's wish to expand the evacuation zone for local residents to a 30-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 plant. Obviously, the utility was taking the situation at the No. 2 reactor gravely. Although the hydrogen explosions at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor buildings had occurred outside the containment vessels, massive levels of radiation would leak out if the reactors themselves had been damaged.

A news conference began at 8:30 a.m., with senior TEPCO executives bowing their heads in apology. Asked if the crisis should be considered irreversible, an executive replied, "What has happened is grave in terms of the scale of the phenomenon."

Kan returned to the prime minister's office at 8:46 a.m. At 9 a.m., the radiation level near the front gates of the Fukushima No. 1 plant registered a whopping 11,930 microsieverts per hour.

Had local residents been evacuated on the basis of data provided by the SPEEDI, many would have been spared unnecessary exposure to radiation. But neither the NISA nor the Nuclear Safety Commission had informed Kan and other key government members of the existence of SPEEDI itself. Why?

Madarame, chairperson of the Nuclear Safety Commission, explained, "I was the only person capable of predicting what would happen to the Fukushima No. 1 plant. I just could not be expected to deal with SPEEDI at the same time. I'd have to be an ultra-superman to do that, and I am not. From the standpoint of fair division of labor, it was the job of the NISA to inform the prime minister."

NISA Director-General Terasaka had this to say: "It isn't like we are forbidden to mention SPEEDI to the prime minister, but it is the science and technology ministry that oversees the operation of this system."

The situation at the Fukushima No. 1 plant continued to deteriorate in the absence of effective countermeasures. At 1 p.m., Kan instructed an aide to phone the Yokohama Institute of Riken, a research institute.

Riken, a top-notch research institute headquartered in Wako, Saitama Prefecture, is engaged in cutting-edge research in basic sciences.

In Riken Yokohama Institute around 1 p.m. on March 15, the phone rang on the desk of Hiroshi Ikukawa, head of the institute's Research Promotion Department. It was Prime Minister Kan calling.

An official of the science and technology ministry, Ikukawa had served as Kan's aide in 2009 when Kan was deputy prime minister doubling as state minister in charge of science and technology policy.

After exchanging greetings, Kan asked,"Your specialty is nuclear energy, right?"

"Um, no," a puzzled Ikukawa replied. "It's space. Space engineering,"

A brief silence. Then Kan said, "You wouldn't believe the mess we're in. Would you help us?"

Ikukawa took a taxi to the prime minister's office. The moment he arrived, Kan whisked his old friend into his office. Soon they were joined by Masanori Aritomi and Masaki Saito, both with the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kan's alma mater. They had been asked by Kenichi Iga, 71, the president of Tokyo Institute of Technology, to help Kan.

Facing his team of experts, brought together through personal contacts, Kan explained, "We are not getting accurate information in a timely manner. Take that hydrogen explosion, for instance. Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission had said it wouldn't happen, but it did. I need to hear the opinions of as many experts as possible, other than members of the Nuclear Safety Commission and officials of the NISA, so that I will be better able to decide what needs to be done."

Added to the ongoing crisis at the No. 2 reactor, a new problem had emerged; the temperature was rising in the spent fuel storage pool of the No. 4 reactor.

Kan asked the team to go to the integrated disaster response office at TEPCO and report to him on anything they noticed. The office had been established only that morning, and the team duly went there later that day.

From the following day, Aritomi and Saito continuously advised Kan on technical matters. Ikukawa began commuting to the integrated disaster response office every day and texted Kan at all hours to keep him posted on every new development. This went on until Kan's resignation about six months later.

March 15 was the day Kan's personal network of experts came into play. Also on the same day, Kan officially appointed Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, as secretary-general of the integrated disaster response office. This enabled Kan to leave it to Hosono to deal with day-to-day matters and communicate with the office through him.

Kan also delegated tsunami-related responsibilities to Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano and others, so that he himself could stay focused on the nuclear crisis.

Yet, it was as if the crisis was breeding itself, outpacing Kan's efforts to contain it. Obviously, Kan's responsibility ought to be called into question as the nation's top political leader. But in all fairness to the prime minister, it should be noted that the root of the problem lay in the dysfunctional bureaucracy, which had been observed since March 11 when the Great East Japan Earthquake took place.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, Prime Minister Kan was attending an Audit Committee meeting in the Upper House.

Kan grasped the armrests of his chair and stared at the ceiling where a chandelier swung wildly.

Amid shouts as people dove for cover under tables, Yosuke Tsuruho, 44, chairman of the Audit Committee, declared the meeting adjourned.

Surrounded by security police, Kan was escorted to the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama followed the prime minister's movements on a monitor in the prime minister's aides' office on the fifth floor. He immediately instructed an aide, "Contact Tetsuro Ito, deputy chief Cabinet secretary for crisis management, and tell him to put an emergency team together."

A former Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department chief, Ito, 63, was tasked with establishing an emergency response office at the prime minister's office, where he would gather information and coordinate initial response activities. He would effectively lead the emergency team made up of bureau chief-level officials of government ministries and agencies.

Fukuyama rushed into the crisis management center, followed shortly by Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, and then Kan. The government ministry and agency officials were already gathered there.

Desks were arranged to form a large oval. Kan sat in the center, flanked by Edano and other key Cabinet members as well as Ito.

Each ministry or agency official had a dedicated phone sitting on his desk, enabling them to receive updates on quake damage from their ministries or agencies. Every time an update came in, the official who received it would repeat the message on a microphone for everyone in the room to hear.

"A fire has broken out, but the scale is unknown."

"We've got the latest information on road damage."

"They've just revised the quake's magnitude from what they'd announced earlier!"

Junior ministry and agency officials took notes, which were copied immediately and given to Kan and others.

"Emergency shutdown at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant."

"Also at the Fukushima No. 2 plant."

The nuclear power plants had shut themselves down automatically.

But at 3:27 p.m., the first wave of tsunami struck coastal towns of the Tohoku region. The second wave came eight minutes later.

About 10 giant TV monitors hung on the walls of the crisis management center. They would soon start showing images of the towns being swallowed up.

Around 3:40 p.m., the Fukushima plant developed an abnormality, followed shortly by the announcement, "The Fukushima No. 1 plant has lost all AC power!"

Kan knew that something extremely grave was beginning to unfold.

The tsunami knocked out all AC power sources at the Fukushima No. 1 plant within a matter of four minutes from 3:37 p.m.

No juice meant the cooling system for the nuclear reactors would not work, which in turn meant the reactors would become overheated and melt the fuel rods, which would burn holes in the reactors and start leaking out.

This total loss of AC power was the first real crisis ever to befall a nuclear power plant in Japan.

The Fukushima No. 1 plant was in utter pandemonium.

The personal handy-phone system (PHS), which was being used at the plant for in-house communications, went down. Workers switched to transceivers, but the noise made them useless. There was only one landline connecting the plant's central control room and the on-site response center in the earthquake-proof wing.

Yoshida, head of the plant, was in the on-site response center at the time. But he had next to no idea what was going on in the plant's reactor units.

Workers in the employ of TEPCO's affiliates had already evacuated upon hearing the tsunami alert.

Only a small number of workers remained at the plant, and the burden of post-disaster recovery work fell on the shoulders of TEPCO employees. But with almost all non-TEPCO workers gone, they could not even tell where necessary tools and materials were stored.

Immediately after the quake, Yoshida called TEPCO's head office and requested manpower reinforcements.

Industry minister Kaieda was at the ministry when he was informed of the total loss of AC power at 3:42 p.m. Then, about an hour later, he got worse news; the plant was no longer able to cool the reactor cores in the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors.

The same message was communicated to Prime Minister Kan.

At 4:54 p.m., Kan held a news conference, but he had little information to give. All he could say was, "Some nuclear power stations have shut themselves down automatically, but no radiation leakage has been confirmed so far."

Kaieda rushed to the prime minister's office, and went straight to Kan's office on the fifth floor. Kan had just returned from the news conference. NISA Director-General Terasaka was present.

While being briefed by Kaieda and Terasaka, Kan jotted down in his notebook, "Emergency diesel generator would not start."

He would later recall, "While writing that down, the thought occurred to me: The nuclear power plant is getting out of control." And the worst possible scnario--a nuclear meltdown--also crossed his mind.

According to Terasaka, NISA director-general, it was between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. when he and industry minister Kaieda briefed Prime Minister Kan on the total loss of power that had disabled the reactor cooling system at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

At the time, Kaieda urged Kan to declare a nuclear emergency under the law.

Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, recalls the following exchanges between Kan and Terasaka.

Kan repeated the same questions to Terasaka, but Terasaka could not offer any helpful answer. Finally, Kan asked him bluntly, "Do you understand anything technical?"

Terasaka, a graduate of the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics, recalled the scene during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun: "I answered that I'd graduated from the Faculty of Economics, but added quickly that I believed I understood the basics of technology. I answered the prime minister truthfully because I was anything but an expert on nuclear reactors. I could only tell him that I didn't know what was really going on (at Fukushima)."

A secretary of Kan had written down the exchanges between Kan and Terasaka.

"Prime minister asked, 'Are you an engineer?' Finding Terasaka not an expert, Kan said, 'Someone well-versed in technologies should be called in.' I have almost no recollection of Terasaka meeting with the prime minister after that time."

Before becoming NISA director-general in July 2009, Terasaka was director-general for commerce and distribution policy at the industry ministry. It was more or less the custom at the NISA to alternate bureaucrats and technocrats at the top.

When the government's nuclear emergency response headquarters was established at 7:03 p.m. on March 11, Terasaka was given the key post of secretary-general.

Records at the prime minister's office show that Terasaka was present when TEPCO's request to evacuate the Fukushima No. 1 plant was being debated in the wee hours of March 15.

But Kan has no recollection of his dealings with Terasaka from March 12 on.

Where was Terasaka?

In the evening of March 11, NISA chief Terasaka went to the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office. His "understanding of technology" had just been challenged by Prime Minister Kan in his office on the fifth floor.

At 7:03 p.m., Kan declared a nuclear emergency and established the nuclear emergency response headquarters, with himself at the helm and Terasaka as secretary-general.

By his own account, Terasaka attended the chief Cabinet secretary's news conference at 7:45 p.m. He left the prime minister's office shortly afterward and returned to the NISA in the Kasumigaseki district about 760 meters away.

In Terasaka's absence, Eiji Hiraoka, the agency's vice director-general, interfaced with the prime minister and his team. A veteran NISA official, Hiraoka was a graduate of the University of Tokyo's Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Teraoka explained his reason for returning to the agency after the news conference: "The secretariat of the nuclear emergency response headquarters was at the NISA. With Hiraoka busy at the prime minister's office, someone had to mind the shop at the agency, so I returned."

But Hiraoka, too, disappeared from the prime minister's office around noon on March 13. From then on, the senior NISA official who advised Kan on technical matters was Yasui, 53, who had studied nuclear engineering at the Kyoto University graduate school.

Yasui, however, was not an agency man proper. A department chief at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, he was technically on loan to the NISA.

Both these agencies are offshoots of the industry ministry. Terasaka recalled, "I could sense that the prime minister didn't think we were good enough." Terasaka had asked the energy agency to let Hiraoka pull double duties at both agencies, effective March 12, so he could send Hiraoka to the prime minister's office.

This meant that until then, the NISA did not have anyone capable of providing expert advice to the prime minister and his team.

Terasaka commented, "It would have been ideal if our agency could explain to the prime minister what was going on at Fukushima. But we had little information on which to form our judgment. I accept your criticism that we could not advise the prime minister adequately as a result."

Yasui could not be reached for comment.

On the night of March 11, the magnitude of tsunami damage became increasingly apparent as time passed. Added to that was the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. After declaring a nuclear emergency, Kan told Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, "I want you to keep your eyes on everything that's happening, as I must focus on the nuclear crisis."

He then asked an aide to find a room where members of the nuclear emergency response headquarters could meet without distractions and interruptions. The aide suggested a small room on the mezzanine with a full view of the crisis management center.

But the room would turn out to be a very bad choice.

Only about 10 people could fit into the small room on the mezzanine level above the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office.

On the night of March 11, this room became the "control center" where the nuclear emergency response team gathered information and made decisions.

Prime Minister Kan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano and industry minister Kaieda were among those who frequented the room. And there was also Takekuro, a TEPCO "fellow," representing the utility.

The room, however, had only two telephone lines and no fax machine. Moreover, the room and the entire crisis management center were outside the service range of cellphones.

Any information concerning the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant, sent by phone from TEPCO head office, had to be relayed to the room. The same was the case with calls from the NISA.

Takekuro asked the TEPCO head office to send help and install a dedicated fax line, but the installation had to wait for two days until March 13.

The room had one television set, and Takekuro was reduced to relying on TV news for updates on the nuclear crisis.

At 8:26 p.m., Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama received a report from the NISA. According to Fukuyama, the report came from either Terasaka, the agency's director-general, or his deputy, Hiraoka.

A memo kept by Fukuyama says: "Theoretically, radiation will start leaking 24 hours after failure of (the Fukushima No. 1 plant's) reactor cooling system. Evacuate residents one hour earlier."

At the time, Fukuyama had next to no knowledge of the workings of nuclear power plants. He asked about the probability of a reactor exploding, and was told it was not zero. He also asked if radioactive substances would escape into the atmosphere, and was told it was possible. The answers did not help him at all.

Around 9 p.m., Madarame, chair of the Nuclear Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office, arrived at the prime minister's office. Kaieda demanded "a full explanation of the situation from the chair himself."

Stepping into the room on the messazine, Madarame was shocked to notice that there was no copy of the blueprint of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. He recalled thinking then, "The NISA has a copy. Why on earth haven't they provided it to the prime minister's team?"

Stored at the Nuclear Safety Commission were documents of application for permission to build the plant.

Madarame had been to the Fukushima No. 1 plant many times. He jogged his memory, trying to recall the plant's layout. Seeing Takekuro in the room, Madarame went to him, and together they tried desperately to remember what was where at the plant.

With the power gone for the reactor cooling system, the situation remained dismal at the Fukushima No. 1 plant while Madarame and Takekuro struggled to remember the plant's layout.

"Let's see, there should be two emergency diesel-engine generators in the basement there, right?" Madarame said, turning to Takekuro for confirmation. "And there should be an additional generator shared by the reactors Nos. 1 through 4 ..."

His cellphone was out of the service range. To communicate by phone with his commission, Madarame had to step out of the room. The little room that served as the "control center" had only two land lines, which no man would dare hog. He was reduced to relying only on memory and whatever information he could glean from television.

Madarame's frustration grew. He began to raise his voice in anger.

"Why aren't we getting any information?" he yelled. "What's the NISA doing?"

Madarame is bitterly critical of the agency's performance to this day. He told The Asahi Shimbun, "NISA Vice Director-General Hiraoka was with us. But his specialty was electrical engineering. The agency's secretariat should have given Hiraoka every technical support and every bit of information they had. But they didn't. If I may say so, the agency was as good as nonexistent then."

Cut off from information as he was, Madarame concluded that venting the reactor and injecting water from firetrucks was the only way to cool the reactor. "Takekuro agreed with me," he recalled.

Venting meant letting steam escape from the reactor to reduce the pressure and allow cooling water to be pumped in, which would reduce the risk of an explosion. But resorting to this method would cause radioactive substances to escape into the atmosphere, which meant people over a wide area could be exposed to radiation, and plans had to be worked out for their evacuation.

Industry minister Kaieda, who was in the room, shouted angrily, "We are totally helpless without our cellphones. How on earth are we going to gather information?"

The grim fact was that the experts, on whom the government's crisis management team depended, had to rely on television and memory in the early stages of the nuclear crisis while they struggled to contain it.

Kan and the key members of the nuclear emergency response headquarters eventually abandoned this inconvenient little room and moved their "control center" into Kan's office on the fifth floor.

NISA Vice Director-General Hiraoka was summoned to Kan's office around 9 p.m. on March 11. Already gathered there were Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, industry minister Kaieda, and Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister.

Also attending the meeting were Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission, TEPCO fellow Takekuro and Susumu Kawamata, 55, general manager of TEPCO's Nuclear Quality & Safety Management Department.

Edano presided over the meeting. According to Hiraoka, Edano began, "The prime minister has declared a nuclear emergency. I'd like everyone's input on how we should plan the evacuation of local residents."

Edano asked Takekuro to explain about the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

But Takekuro had no more information than anyone else in the room. All he could say was, "We are doing everything we can to gather information."

Edano then turned to Madarame and asked, "What happens if there is no change in the situation?"

Madarame replied, "If we remain unable to pump cooling water into the reactor, the fuel rods could become exposed and cause damage to the reactor core."

Madarame, Hiraoka and Takekuro concurred that a power source must be secured for the water pump, and that repairs had to be made to a damaged pump in order to release heat from the reactor to the sea.

"What if we can't release the heat?" Edano asked.

"Then we'll have to vent the reactor," Madarame replied.

Venting the reactor would mean radiation spilling out with the steam and possibly irradiating local residents. How extensive should the evacuation zone be?

The Nuclear Safety Commission's guidelines required the enforcement of intensive disaster-prevention measures in an area within a 10-kilometer radius from the plant. Madarame, however, reminded the meeting of an IAEA document recommending "preventive measures" for areas within a radius of 3 to 5 kilometers from the plant. "Three kilometers should be sufficient," he told Edano.

Hiraoka recalled the scenario used by the NISA for its annual evacuation drill. It called for the evacuation of everyone from an area within a radius of 2 to 3 km from the plant, and required people 5 to 8 km downwind to remain inside buildings.

At 9:23 p.m., the government issued an instruction on evacuation from the 3-kilometer zone and requiring those in the 3- to 10-km zone to stay inside buidings. But no consideration was made for the wind direction or topography. This was simply a preventive measure in the event of venting the crippled reactor.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Kan was preoccupied with getting hold of vehicle-mounted generators.

When the evacuation of residents within 3 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 plant was announced at 9:23 p.m. on March 11, there were still no prospects of restoring power to the plant by means of vehicle-mounted generators.

The buildup of steam pressure inside the reactor was such that it required tremendous force to pump water into it.

The plant chief Yoshida had already informed the prime minister's office via TEPCO that the plant's cooling system could be restored if he could get hold of vehicle-mounted generators to power high-pressure pumps.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama and Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, busied themselves arranging for police vehicles to escort vehicle-mounted generators to Fukushima.

Fukuyama scurried back-and-forth between the room on the mezzanine level in the basement and the Kan's office on the fifth floor to gather information, while Terada remained glued to his post in the office.

While a fleet of vehicle-mounted generators was being hastily put together, Prime Minister Kan jotted down every development in his notebook. According to his memo, TEPCO was in a position to provide 20 high-voltage units while the Kahiwazaki-Kariwa plant ordered a battery, which would take a day to replace.

Those generators weighed eight tons each, and Kan considered transporting them on Self-Defense Force helicopters. He asked an aide dispatched from the Defense Ministry, "Can that be done?" But when the aide was given the generators' specifications, he replied, "No, sir. Too heavy."

Kan then turned to U.S. Forces Japan for assistance, but it could not help either.

The possibility of a meltdown grew real.

According to notes taken by Fukuyama that night, it was someone from either TEPCO or NISA who explained the situation as follows: "Emergency diesel generators are needed to cool the reactor, but they have been damaged by the tsunami. A further rise in the temperature inside the reactor could trigger a meltdown in 10 hours. The situation is extremely grave."

A vehicle-mounted generator of the Tohoku Electric Power Co. arrived at the Fukushima No. 1 plant before 11 p.m. It was followed by three more units from the SDF.

Fukuyama, who was in the room on the mezzanine level in the basement at the time, did not know of the generators' arrival. But Terada did, and whooped with joy.

At the Fukushima plant, however, workers were having trouble laying power transmission cables between the generators and the plant. The area was still being jolted by strong aftershocks, which caused frequent disruptions to the work. And to make matters worse, most communication devices were useless, causing delays in the conveyance of information to the on-site response center at the plant.

At 10:44 p.m., a message from the NISA reached Kan, who was in the room on the mezzanine. It was about the No. 2 reactor.

The message was that a meltdown could begin in two hours.

Around 12:15 a.m. on March 12, Prime Minister Kan sat down to a teleconference with U.S. President Barack Obama. Kan thanked the president profusely for his kind words of sympathy and support. "I am really encouraged by your words."

After the teleconference, Kan went to the "mezzanine room" in the basement of the prime minister's office to deal with a new crisis that had developed shortly before his conversation with Obama; there were signs of an abnormal rise in pressure inside the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor--not the No. 2 unit where the NISA had predicted a risk of meltdown.

Nine minutes before the teleconference started, at 12:06 a.m., Yoshida, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, ordered his staff to start preparations for venting the No. 1 reactor.

As venting would release radioactive substances along with high-pressure steam, local residents would have to be evacuated. Whether to proceed with it or not was a tough call, and Kan and his emergency response team began debating the issue at 12:57 a.m.

According to notes taken at the time by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama, the team was informed by NISA's Hiraoka and Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission that the water level in the No. 1 reactor were still about one meter above the fuel rods. Since this meant that the reactor was still safe from a core meltdown, the amount of radiation released through venting should not be too great. The team concluded then that there was no need to expand the evacuation zone.

Fukuyama's notes say, "it was decided to vent the No. 1 reactor."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, industry minister Kaieda, and TEPCO fellow Takekuro were among the people present when the decision was reached to start venting the No. 1 reactor at around 3 a.m. The time was Takekuro's idea, who advised the team that the preparations would take about two hours.

The decision made, Kan returned to his office on the fifth floor. Kaieda left for the industry ministry, where he would hold a news conference.

Edano was coming out of the mezzanine room when Fukuyama stopped him and said, "Should radiation start spilling out of the No. 1 reactor at the ungodly hour (of 3 in the morning), that may well panic the entire nation, not only Fukushima (Prefecture). We can't withhold the announcement until daybreak. The people would think we tried to cover it up."

Edano agreed. "Let's give a news conference of our own (while Kaieda is giving his)," he said.

At 3:06 a.m., a joint news conference by Kaieda and Akio Komori, 59, TEPCO managing director, began at the industry ministry. Upon confirming this, Edano proceeded to his own news conference at the prime minister's office.

At 3:12 a.m. on March 12, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano held a news conference at the prime minister's office on venting the No. 1 reactor to prevent the reactor from blowing up. It was an attempt Japan had never experienced before.

He began, "We have been informed by TEPCO that it is necessary to relieve pressure in the No. 1 reactor containment vessel in order to secure its structural soundness. Taking this step is unavoidable to secure safety. ..."

Six minutes earlier, another news conference of the same nature had started at the industry ministry with Kaieda and TEPCO Managing Director Komori.

Asked by a reporter if the venting was imminent, Komori replied in the affirmative, "We are all set to go. It could start even as we speak."

It was the shared belief of Prime Minister Kan and his nuclear emergency response team that venting the reactor should at least avert an explosion and that the reactor cooling system would be back in operation once vehicle-mounted generators were in place at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Having seen the arrangements to deploy vehicle-mounted generators completed, Kan instructed that plans should be made for his inspection tour of the crippled nuclear plant. Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, wore sandals on his bare feet as he drew up Kan's itinerary.

At 3:59 a.m., a 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck. The epicenter was in northern Nagano Prefecture. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama hurried from the "mezzanine room" to the crisis management center in the basement.

In a voice tinged with urgency, he asked a senior official of the Japan Meteorological Agency, "Is this an aftershock of the Tohoku quake, or is this something entirely different?" His voice boomed throughout the crisis management center on the public-address system.

Fukuyama dropped what he was doing on the nuclear crisis and started gathering information on the Nagano temblor. The crisis management center was thrown into confusion.

When it was confirmed that there were no fatalities, Fukuyama got back to dealing with the nuclear crisis. Returning to the mezzanine room, he found Hiraoka of the NISA, Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission, and TEPCO fellow Takekuro.

"Has the venting begun?" Fukuyama asked.

The answer was in the negative.

Fukuyama shouted in anger, "Why on earth not? It was you who said venting should start around 3! The chief Cabinet secretary has already told the reporters (that it would start around 3). Now he's lied to the nation, that's what! Isn't the reactor going to blow if it's not vented? Is it all right (if the venting is delayed)?"

Prime Minister Kan had yet to be informed of this situation.

Near 4:30 a.m. on March 12, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama was fuming that venting had yet to begin at the No. 1 reactor unit. "Why has it not begun?" he yelled in frustration at Hiraoka of the NISA, Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission and TEPCO fellow Takekuro, who were with Fukuyama in the mezzanine room in the basement of the prime minister's office.

"There is manual venting, and there is also power venting," one of the three explained. "But since power venting is impossible in the absence of electricity (at the Fukushima No. 1 plant), I have asked the people there to get going with manual venting as fast as possible."

Then someone remarked, "The radiation level is rising around the No. 1 reactor," implying that the workers could not get near the reactor.

At 4:30 a.m., Fukuyama hurried out of the mezzanine room and went up to the fifth floor where Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano was. Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, went with him.

Edano's face clouded over when Fukuyama said, "Venting has not yet been conducted."

Prime Minister Kan had just finished dressing for his inspection tour of the crippled plant. Around 5 a.m., Kan went down to the crisis management center in the basement, accompanied by his aide Okamoto, and Terada, special adviser to the prime minister.

Fukuyama, who had returned to the center ahead of Kan, ran to him and whispered without breaking stride, "Mr. Prime Minister, the venting hasn't started yet."

But Terada and Okamoto, who had been busy preparing Kan's itinerary, had not heard about the venting. "Venting? What venting?" they asked.

Kan only grunted, and proceeded to the mezzanine room with Terada and Okamoto in tow.

There, the prime minister asked Madarame, "What happens if we remain unable to vent the reactor? What is the probability of an explosion?"

"Not zero, " Madarame answered.

Acting upon Madarame's advice, Kan decided at 5:44 a.m. to expand the evacuation zone from within a 3-kilometer radius to 10 kilometers.

At the time, residents near the crippled plant were fleeing helter-skelter in cars and buses, having no idea where they should go.

All they knew was to head west, and as far away as possible.

Traffic crawled along. Every evacuation center they eventually reached was filled to capacity. They had to keep going.

At 5:44 a.m. on March 12, the evacuation zone was expanded from the initial 3-kilometer radius to 10 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant.

The expansion vastly increased the number of evacuees. There were now about 50,000 people--residents of the four towns of Okuma, Futaba, Tomioka and Namie.

Ito, deputy chief Cabinet secretary for crisis management, was in the executive meeting room at the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office when he was informed of the expanded evcuation zone. Ito and his staff immediately began discussing how the evacuation should proceed.

First, they checked the numbers of residents and households in the evacuation zone, and then tried to find out how many were in hospitals or needed special assistance. Next, they discussed how to arrange transportation for those people and secure places for them to stay.

Soon, information started coming in from the National Police Agency, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Senior officials of the NISA, where the secretariat of the nuclear response response headquarters was located, were also present at the meeting.

Ito told the meeting, "Now that the evacuation zone has been expanded, please make sure that all the prefectural and municipal authorites concerned are kept up to speed. I am counting on you all."

The town of Okuma, where a part of the Fukushima No. 1 plant is located, was home to the central government's off-site nuclear emergency response center responsible for relaying evacuation orders or directives to the local municipalities.

Masao Uchibori, vice governor of Fukushima Prefecture, rushed to the headquarters. Seven emergency response teams were organized. But the quake and tsunami of the previous day had knocked out much of the communication networks, and only three satellite telephones remained operable. Confusion reigned.

According to Kenji Matsuoka, director of NISA's Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Division, the off-site center notified the towns of Okuma and Futaba of the expansion of the evacuation zone around 6:20 a.m. Matsuoka quoted the records prepared by the off-site center.

According to the records, the off-site center could not reach the towns of Tomioka and Namie until 7:48 a.m. The records also say that the evacuation process in those towns was confirmed by the off-site center.

The truth, however, was that the Namie town office first learned of the expansion of the evacuation zone from TV reports, and town officials took the initiative in arranging transportation for the residents and urging them, on the town's emergency response wireless system, to evacuate. Here, too, there was great confusion among the town officials and residents alike.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Kan set out on his inspection tour of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. Kan had told reporters before departing, "I intend to speak with local responsible parties and get an accurate picture."

The SDF helicopter Super Puma, carrying Kan and his 12-member entourage, took off at 6:14 a.m. The members included Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission, Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, a select group of reporters, a medical officer and Kan's aides. About one hour later, Kan and his party arrived at the crippled plant.

At 7:12 a.m. on March 12, the SDF helicopter carrying Prime Minister Kan and his entourage of 12 arrived at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Kan, clad in disaster-response duds and sneakers, was greeted by TEPCO Executive Vice President Sakae Muto, 61, and Motohisa Ikeda, 71, senior vice minister of the ministry of trade and industry who headed the off-site emergency response center. They all boarded a minibus.

Kan sat in a window seat behind the driver. When Muto sat next to him, Kan lashed out at him, "Why haven't you started venting (the No. 1 reactor)? Get going with it! Just do it!"

Kan's voice was so loud and angry that Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, could not help flinching from four rows behind.

Muto said something, but Terada could not catch it. "It was just an incoherent mumble," he recalled. Kan, too, would describe it as such.

Tadashi Tsumura, a Kyodo News reporter representing the Kantei Kisha Club (press club of the prime minister's office), was sitting in the back of the minibus. Terada turned to him with a concerned look and said, "I hope you won't write about the prime minister losing it, will you?"

Kan made no attempt to control his anger.

He recalled, "The fate of our nation hinged on the venting, but TEPCO was being hopelessly wishy-washy. How could I not scream and shout in frustration?"

That was one of the rare episodes of Kan's outbursts since March 11, but it stuck and amplified his image as "the ranting and raving prime minister."

But Kan was not the only one who was losing it. Industry minister Kaieda, who remained in the mezzanine room of the prime minister's office, was also ranting and raving.

He screamed in fury at TEPCO fellow Takekuro, "Why can't you vent the reactor? I'm ordering you to do it! It's an order, do you hear?!"

At 6:50 a.m., while Kan was still in the air, Kaieda invoked the nuclear reactor regulation law and issued an order to vent the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors. Nobody at the prime minister's office was getting any satisfactory explanation of why the venting had not started as scheduled. The fear of an explosion was growing increasingly real.

When the minibus carrying Kan and his party arrived at the plant's earthquake-proof wing where the on-site response headquarters was located, they were made to join a line of workers measuring radiation.

The line hardly moved, and Kan sensed something was not right. "We don't have any time for this!" he yelled, and left the line. He headed straight for the conference room on the second floor.

The moment he stepped into the building, he gasped.

At around 7:20 a.m. on March 12, Prime Minister Kan stepped into the earthquake-proof wing of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

What met his eyes took his breath away.

The corridor was so crammed with workers that Kan and his entourage had to squeeze their way through. Some were sleeping like logs, their chests bare.

More men lined the staircase leading to the second floor. Dripping with sweat, they stood leaning against the walls, eyes closed or staring vacantly into space.

Elbowing his way up, Kan thought: "This is like a field hospital."

Strangely, there was no one in the room he had been directed to. Tsumura, the embedded Kyodo News reporter, followed him into the room. Noticing his presence, Kan said sharply, "You shouldn't be here. Leave."

After Tsumura left, plant chief Yoshida entered the room. Kan had not met him before.

Muto, TEPCO executive vice president, arrived shortly later and stood by Yoshida. The two men started briefing Kan on the situation, with a map of the plant spread out on a table.

"We will decide within an hour whether to vent the No. 1 reactor manually," Muto said. "But if we are to power-vent the reactor as planned, it will be about four hours before we can start."

Manual venting would require workers to enter the high-radiation reactor building to open the steam pipeline valve.

"Four hours? We can't wait that long! Do it sooner!" Kan thundered.

Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, felt his irritation rise at TEPCO's "incredible slowness to act."

A medical officer in the entourage advised Terada, "Given the high radiation level here, we shouldn't stay too long." Terada tried to relay the advice to Kan, but the prime minister was so worked up that Terada could not bring himself to butt in.

Then Yoshida spoke up. "We will definitely vent the reactor," he said firmly. "We'll do it even if we have to send in a suicide squad."

Kan would later recall, "I knew right then that Yoshida was someone I could work with."

When the meeting ended and Terada stepped out of the room, Ikeda, senior vice industry minister, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Do try to calm down the prime minister."

Terada's rejoinder was, "He's better than usual."

While Prime Minister Kan was at the Fukushima No. 1 plant on the morning of March 12, the Fukushima No. 2 plant also became unable to control pressure in its reactors.

A state of emergency was declared at 7:45 a.m. A 3-kilometer-radius evacuation zone was set, while people within a 3- to 10-kilometer radius were instructed to stay indoors.

The nuclear crisis was spreading in all directions.

At 8:29 a.m., TEPCO reported to the NISA that venting would begin at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant at around 9 o'clock.

Leaving the Fukushima No. 1 plant, Kan and his entourage took an aerial survey of the quake-and-tsunami-devastated Miyagi Prefecture and were on their way back at 9:19 a.m.

Shortly before that, at 9:04 a.m., the attempts for venting actually began at the No. 1 reactor. For the first time in Japan, radioactive substances were intentionally released from a nuclear reactor.

As workers assigned to manually open the steam pipeline valve of the reactor would be exposed to radiation, three two-man teams were formed to minimize the amount of exposure per worker. Clad in fireproof clothing and carrying torches, the first team ventured into the high-radiation, pitch-black reactor unit, with no means of communication with the outside.

The team opened the valve 25 percent as planned and returned to the central control room.

When the second team was on their way to the reactor unit, their dosimeter beeped to signify that the radiation level had topped 90 millisieverts. The team turned back. It was decided then that the task should be discontinued.

Around 10 a.m., TEPCO President Shimizu returned to the utility's Tokyo head office from his business trip in the Kansai region. According to The Mainichi Shimbun, Shimizu and his wife were sightseeing at the ancient ruins of Heijokyo palace in Nara Prefecture when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.

Around the time Shimizu arrived at TEPCO's head office, attempts were being made at the Fukushima No. 1 plant to open the valve by remote control from the central control room.

One of the workers who had opened the valve manually was found to have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation.

At 10:47 a.m., Kan arrived at the prime minister's office.

Kan, industry minister Kaieda and other key members of the nuclear emergency response team decided to move out of the mezzanine room in the basement where nobody could use their cellphone. From that afternoon, Kan's office and the adjoining parlor on the fifth floor became the team's headquarters.

At 2:30 p.m., TEPCO confirmed that the pressure inside the No. 1 reactor had dropped. This was thought to indicate that the reactor had been successfully vented.

The "good news" was communicated to the prime minister's office, and the key members of Kan's team began to assemble on the fifth floor. Kan himself attended a meeting with opposition party leaders at 3 p.m.

It was during this meeting that an explosion ocurred at the No. 1 reactor building.

An explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 plant at 3:36 p.m. on March 12. The first party to notice this was Fukushima Central Television.

Futoshi Yanai, 45, the chief cameraman, was on the first floor of the broadcaster's head office in Koriyama when he happened to glance at a tape deck monitor screen. The screen showed white smoke.

The image was being streamed from an unmanned camera, set up for 24/7 monitoring in the mountains about 17 kilometers south-southwest of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Wondering what the smoke was about, Yanai copied the image to a Blu-ray disc, which he took to the adjoining editing room and watched with a colleague.

Yanai enlarged the image. A building was exploding.

Takashi Sato, 55, chief of the news production bureau, was in the nearby studio. Grabbing his arm, Yanai marched him to the editing room and replayed the image for him.

"Is the explosion inside the reactor, or outside?" Sato asked repeatedly, fearing radition could be spewing out. The smoke seemed to be coming out of the building that housed the reactor.

"Let's air this at once," Yanai said to Sato, his heart pounding. "It's a fact that the building has exploded. That's the truth this picture is telling, and we must broadcast the truth."

Sato's decision was quick. "Yes, let's do it. The picture tells there's a crisis in progress, and it's for our viewers to decide what to make of it."

As born-and-bred Fukushima men, both Yanai and Sato could not but think of their families and friends as they stared at the screen. They prayed silently, "Please turn the TV on. Please flee as soon as you can."

At 3:40 p.m., the broadcaster interrupted the regular program and aired footage of the explosion. Satoko Ohashi, an announcer, stood in front of the camera, wearing a white hard hat. For seven minutes, Ohashi simply kept describing what she was seeing: "A little while ago, a great mass of smoke billowed out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. As you can see, the smoke is drifting north. ..."

Only four minutes had elapsed since the explosion. Fukushima residents who saw the image on television readied themselves to evacuate.

Today, Yanai and Sato are convinced that they made the right decision, and are glad they did.

Prime Minister Kan was meeting with opposition party leaders when "rumors" of smoke spewing out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant reached the prime minister's office. Kan's staffers scurried to call the NISA and TEPCO for confirmation, but nobody had an answer.

Nobody in Tokyo had yet seen footage of the explosion on television.

At 4:03 p.m. on March 12, Prime Minister Kan wrapped up his meeting with opposition party leaders. The No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 plant had exploded 27 minutes before.

Around the time the meeting was ending, TEPCO Chairman Katsumata arrived at the utility's Tokyo head office. He had just returned from Beijing. At a news conference on March 30 that year, Katsumata admitted that he had gone to China with retired media executives, and that TEPCO had paid a greater part of the travel expenses than the executives did.

At the time, Kan was notified only that white smoke was rising from the No. 1 reactor unit.

At 4:49 p.m., Nippon Television Network Corp. aired footage of the explosion on its nationwide network, which includes Fukushima Central Television.

Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, saw it and ran into Kan's office, shouting, "Mr. Prime Minister, you've got to see this!"

Today, Terada does not remember if he switched on the TV set in the office, or if the TV was already on and all he did was change the channel.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama was in the room, and so was Madarame, chairperson of the Nuclear Safety Commission, whose face was a study in stunned embarrassment, according to Terada.

Terada hoped then that Kan would not take his anger out on Madarame. The night before, Kan had repeatedly asked Madarame if they should be concerned about a possible hydrogen explosion, and Madarame had assured him that there was no cause for concern.

"The thought of a hydrogen explosion did not enter my mind at that time," Madarame would later recall. "But after it happened, I could understand why it occurred."

Kan did not take Madarame to task for his misjudgment. "I didn't see any point in perseverating on this matter with someone who'd simply failed to predict it," Kan recalled.

Having seen the explosion on television, Kan ordered his staff to keep gathering information. It was an hour and nine minutes since Fukushima Central Television had first aired the image on its local network. And during that time, the Fukushima broadcaster had repeatedly pleaded with NTV to air it nationwide.

Why did the Fukushima broadcaster's pleadings go unanswered?

Mana Koshio, NTV's deputy chief of the public relations department, explained: "Fukushima Central Television was all for prompt reporting, and sent us the video footage immediately. But we did not know exactly what was going on, and we feared we could cause a panic if we aired the image before having it properly analyzed. So, we did not air it until we got hold of experts to analyze it and explain the situation to the viewing audience."

Incidentally, when the No. 3 reactor building exploded on March 14, NTV aired the scene only a few minutes after Fukushima Central Television.

In trying to understand the nature of the explosion at the No. 1 reactor building, the only information Prime Minister Kan could obtain was the picture provided by Fukushima Central Television and aired nationwide by NTV at 4:49 p.m. on March 12.

The prime minister's office received reports of "white smoke rising from the reactor building," but neither the NISA, Nuclear Safety Commission nor TEPCO provided any further information.

About 20 minutes before Kan saw the image on television, TEPCO reported to the NISA that the radiation level at the Fukushima No. 1 plant had registered 1,015 microsieverts per hour.

What was happening to cause the radiation level to spike? Did the white smoke signify an explosion? Or was there really an explosion, or was it something else?

Kan's team scurried to gather information, but nothing explained what they really needed to know.

Shortly before 5 p.m., Kan instructed an aide to phone Yasushi Hibino, 66, vice president of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Nomi, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Hibino, an alumnus of Kan's alma mater, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, had been Kan's "comrade at arms" during the years of the campus reform movement. Hibino later served Kan as special adviser to the Cabinet.

When Kan's aide phoned him, Hibino was at his home in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture. "The prime minister knows he is imposing on you terribly, but he really wants you to come and see him," the aide said.

Actually, Hibino had received similar calls at around noon and 3 that afternoon, but had begged off each time because he was simply too exhausted to come to Tokyo.

The day before, he was attending a seminar at the Faculty of Science and Technology of Chuo University in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. Unable to go home that night, he camped out at the university and hardly slept.

But on the third call, Kan's aide would not take no for an answer.

“The prime minister would like you to come by any means. He says he realizes this is an unreasonable request.”

Hibino knew about the explosion at the No. 1 reactor unit from TV news, and could guess it was what Kan wanted to see him about.

But Hibino's specialty was computer technology. He was no nuclear expert, and he knew he wouldn't be of much help to Kan.

Still, sensing Kan's desparation, he relented and agreed to come.

After dinner, Hibino took a taxi to the prime minister's office.

Hibino, an engineer and old school friend of Prime Minister Kan, agreed to come to the prime minister's office on the evening of March 12.

While waiting for Hibino in his office, Kan discussed the explosion at the No. 1 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 plant with Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama.

Even though television was covering the explosion nonstop, Kan and his men were getting no updates at all.

Kan's voice began to rise in irritation. "Why are we not getting any information from TEPCO or the NISA? Yoshida (chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant) should be at the plant. Shouldn't he be able to tell us what that explosion was about?"

The discussion then moved on to whether Edano should hold a news conference. Fukuyama ventured, "Not knowing the circumstances of the explosion, we can't explain anything, can we? Should we postpone the news conference?"

But Edano replied, "No, let's not. If we put it off while television keeps running footage of the explosion, people will become really alarmed. I'm doing it."

After mulling it over for a while, Kan turned to Edano and said, "All right. Please do it."

At 5:39 p.m., the evacuation zone around the Fukushima No. 2 plant--about 10 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 plant--was expanded from within 3 km of the plant to 10 km. A 10-km evacuation zone had already been set around the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Edano's news conference started a little before 6 p.m. "Regarding the episode at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, we have yet to confirm whether it actually occurred at the No. 1 reactor itself," he began. "However, an explosion-like phenomenon has been reported."

"An explosion-like phenomenon" was the expression Edano came up with in the absence of any specific information to explain what it really was.

Reporters asked him repeatedly if the reactor itself had been damaged. All Edano could say was, "We are analyzing the situation."

Around 6 p.m., another news conference was held at the NISA. Koichiro Nakamura, deputy director-general for nuclear safety, noted of the explosion at the No. 1 reactor unit: "We have not been able to obtain any specific information other than what is being shown on television."

It was already more than two hours after the explosion.

At 6:25 p.m., the evacuation zone around the Fukushima No. 1 plant was expanded from within a 10-km radius to 20 km.

At 6 p.m. on March 12, Prime Minister Kan, industry minister Kaieda and others discussed the injection of seawater into the No. 1 reactor. Actually, this was not the first time this matter had come up for discussion.

In the early afternoon, a number of people had overheard Ito, deputy chief Cabinet secretary for crisis management, talking with senior NISA officials in the crisis management center in the basement of the prime minister's office.

"We need to pump cooling water (into the reactor unit), but we'll probably run out of fresh water," Ito pointed out. "Why not use seawater?"

A NISA official replied, "You can't pump seawater into the reactor. It'll ruin the reactor."

"Then where do we get the fresh water, and how much do we need?"

The official had no answer.

TEPCO had started using fire trucks early that morning to pump thousands of liters of fresh water into the No. 1 reactor. But since fresh water was in limited supply and the Fukushima No. 1 plant was located by the sea, it seemed to make sense to switch to seawater and fill the reactor with it.

At 2:50 p.m., TEPCO President Shimizu approved the injection of seawater. Four minutes later, Yoshida, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, ordered the injection at his discretion.

Just around that time, Kaieda declared at the prime minister's office, "If TEPCO is going to take forever trying to decide whether to pump seawater into the reactor, I'm simply going to order them to do it."

Around 3:30 p.m., preparations were finally completed for the injection of seawater.

Several minutes later, an explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor building, and the work was called off.

Kaieda invoked the nuclear reactor regulation law and ordered that emergency steps be taken to flood the No. 1 reactor with seawater. He then instructed the NISA to prepare a written order to that effect.

At 6 p.m., Kan, Kaieda, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama and Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, gathered in Kan's office. They were joined by NISA vice chief Hiraoka, Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission, TEPCO fellow Takekuro, and Kawamata, head of TEPCO's Nuclear Quality & Safety Management Department.

Takekuro told the group, "The explosion has caused damage to some machinery. It will take between an hour and a half and two hours to pump seawater into the reactor."

Questions were then raised about the possibility of the seawater corroding the reactor and causing the fuel rods to dissolve and setting off a chain reaction.

Kan asked the meeting, "If it's going to take a couple of hours to prepare for the pumping operation, please give consideration to the possibility of starting a chain reaction during that period."

The meeting broke up after about 20 minutes, and Takekuro made a phone call.

After the meeting at the prime minister's office in the evening of March 12, TEPCO fellow Takekuro phoned Yoshida, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

"On the matter of pumping seawater into the No. 1 reactor, the prime minister is concerned about a possible chain reaction, among other things," Takekuro began. "It's vital that we win the prime minister's understanding."

"But we've already begun pumping," Yoshida informed him.

"Then, please stop it," Takekuro said. "The matter is still under discussion at the prime minister's office."

Yoshida relayed the exchange to TEPCO head office, where senior executives concurred that they wouldn't be able to avoid discontinuing the task.

But Yoshida kept up the pumping operation regardless, according to an interim report submitted in December 2011 by the government's investigation committee on the Fukushima nuclear accident.

None of what went on within TEPCO that day was communicated to the prime minister's office.

At 7:35 p.m., Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, reported to Prime Minister Kan that the No. 1 reactor was finally ready for the injection of seawater.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuyama wrote in his notebook, "Pump works, piping good."

In short, Kan and his team did not know at that time that pumping had already started at the No. 1 reactor.

Those developments later resulted in Kan being criticized by opposition parties for "stopping" the pumping operation.

Kan noted in retrospect, "Switching from fresh water to seawater had nothing to do with a chain reaction. This must have been obvious to Takekuro because he is an engineer. And yet, the switch to seawater somehow got linked to a chain reaction, and I ended up being criticized for stopping the pumping operation. This defies my understanding."

When Hosono reported that the No. 1 reactor was ready for pumping, he also informed Kan and his team that the explosion at the No. 1 reactor had not occurred in the containment vessel. "The radiation level had spiked right after the explosion, but began to drop rapidly at 4:15 p.m.," Hosono reported. "It was the No. 1 reactor building, not the containment vessel, that blew."

Everyone in the room looked relieved, and the key members of Kan's team resumed their meeting.

At 7:55 p.m., Kan instructed industry ministry Kaieda to order the injection of seawater into the No. 1 reactor. Kan was informed later that the operation had begun.

Shortly after, Hibino, vice president of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, arrived at the prime minister's office and was shown into Kan's office.

Kan griped to his old school friend, "I need to know what the next step I can take, but nobody is giving me any ideas or suggestions. Would you sit with me while I listen to what TEPCO, the NISA and the Nuclear Safety Commission have to say?"

Around 10 p.m. on March 12, Prime Minister Kan sent for three nuclear experts: Kukita, acting chair of the Nuclear Safety Commission; NISA Vice Director-General Hiraoka and Kawamata, general manager of TEPCO's Nuclear Quality & Safety Management Department.

Hibino, vice president of Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Kan's old friend, also sat in at the meeting in Kan's office.

Kan repeatedly asked the three experts, "A hydrogen explosion has not yet occurred at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. Shouldn't we start venting them and injecting cooling water?" Hibino agreed with Kan.

Earlier that day, at 5:30 p.m., Yoshida, chief of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, instructed his staff to prepare for venting. But the explosion at the No. 1 reactor building had damaged the vehicle-mounted power generators and cables for this operation, rendering the immediate execution of venting impossible.

What to do next? The three experts had no advice for the prime minister.

After the meeting ended past 11 p.m., Hibino said to Kan, "Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. are the makers of the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. They know the reactors better than TEPCO and the NISA."

"You're right," Kan said, and immediately instructed his aides to contact Toshiba and Hitachi.

Around 11:30 p.m., Hibino was chauffeured to a hotel near the prime minister's office, instead of his home. He thought that Kan expected him back at Kan’s office the next morning.

When March 13 dawned, there was still no change in the situation. The No. 2 and No. 3 reactors had yet to be vented, and tensions rose at the prime minister's office.

Shortly after Hibino arrived at Kan's office in the morning, a grim-faced Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, came in. He handed Kan an A4-size sheet of paper.

Hibino also took a look at it. Written on it was the prediction that if the reactors remain unvented, they would become overheated and cause core meltdowns.

Kan stepped out of his office and went into the adjoning parlor, with Hibino in tow, to discuss this grim possibility with the key members of his team.

The room was in chaos. There were haunted, dazed expressions on some faces. Judging that they were in no state to discuss the situation objectively, Kan returned to his office.

At 9:24 a.m., drops in pressure inside the No. 3 reactor were confirmed. Hosono came into the office and reported, "The reactor has been vented successfully." Hibino let out a whoop and clapped.

But the venting valve would shut again.

Back to square one, Hosono asked a TEPCO executive who was present, "Can't you stick a bamboo pole or something into the valve to keep it open?"

The executive replied, "I can tell you with absolute certainty that the valve will open again. And there are multiple valves. They can't possibly all fail at once."

At 11:08 a.m., Toshiba President Norio Sasaki, 62, arrived at the prime minister's office.

Shortly after 11 a.m. on March 13, Toshiba President Sasaki met with Prime Minister Kan in his office. Hibino, Kan's old school friend, sat in the meeting.

"There is a chance of both the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors exploding," Sasaki told Kan.

"Couldn't we drill holes in the ceiling of the reactor buildings to let hydrogen escape?" Kan asked.

Sasaki replied, "Sparks from the drill could set off an explosion. We should use a water jet cutter instead."

Preparations for water-jet cutting were completed on March 14, but not soon enough to prevent the explosion at the No. 3 reactor building that day.

Hibino recalled his impression of what went on in the prime minister's office during the time he was there: "The organizations that were supposed to be advising the prime minister did not function as they should, because the individuals in charge lacked a sense of responsibility as parties directly involved. As a result, the organizations put their own interests above all. Also, they didn't have people who were knowledgeable enough in positions of responsibility."

The Asahi Shimbun tried to reach TEPCO President Shimizu for comment. But a request for an interview, placed through Hasegawa, manager of TEPCO’s Corporate Communications Department, was turned down.

What the reporter wanted to ask Shimizu was this: What, exactly, was the nature of the request TEPCO made to the prime minister's office? Was it for a "full withdrawal" from the Fukushima No. 1 plant, or a "temporary evacuation of non-essential staff?"

Shimizu has reportedly told those close to him, "I will never again speak to anyone of the past."

As chronicled earlier in this series, Shimizu was desperate at one time to talk to industry minister Kaieda about TEPCO's withdrawal from the crippled plant. But Ito, deputy chief Cabinet secretary for crisis management, told Kan in his office around 3 a.m. on March 15, "We must ask TEPCO to hold down the fort, even if they have to put together a suicide squad." Kan agreed, stressing he would never allow TEPCO to abandon the plant.

When Shimizu was summoned to the prime minister's office later, he immediately agreed not to withdraw. This made Ito suspicious, given how insistent TEPCO had been with its request for withdrawal. In fact, before 3 a.m. that day, a senior TEPCO official had made it quite clear to Ito in the parlor adjoining Kan's office that the utility intended to abandon the plant.

Ito remembers the exchange vividly to this day.

However, an interim report by the government's investigation committee on the Fukushima nuclear accident concluded that the people at the prime minister's office had "misinterpreted" TEPCO's intentions concerning its considered withdrawal from the Fukushima No. 1 plant.